Quito drinking water goes mostly to the people who pay for it. That is roughly 2.7 million residents of the Distrito Metropolitano, most of them EPMAPS customers. After them comes a maternity hospital in the south, an airport on the eastern plateau, a brewery, a bottler, and a chain of hydro plants down the valley. Most of that water started as rain and fog caught in páramo, the wet high grassland above the city. EPMAPS puts the páramo share at 85%. FONAG, the city's water fund, says about 90%.
The first post in this series mapped what Quito depends on. This one turns the map around: who depends on Quito's water, pipe by pipe. None of them act on "water." A family in Turubamba acts on whether the tap runs tonight. An airport acts on the Paluguillo plant.
who is on the map
| who | draws on | the edge |
|---|---|---|
| DMQ residents and EPMAPS ratepayers | All four supply systems, 85–90% páramo-fed (EPMAPS vs FONAG figure) | 2,679,722 people in the INEC 2022 census; INEC's projection series says 2,838,174 for 2024. Ratepayers already fund source protection through FONAG |
| Six south parishes: Guamaní, La Ecuatoriana, Chillogallo, Quitumbe, La Argelia, Turubamba | La Mica–Quito Sur alone, fed by Antisana páramo and glacier | About 400,000 people on one conduit. Nueva Aurora obstetrics hospital alone needs 130,000 liters a day |
| Calderón, Tumbaco, Pifo, Tababela and nearby parishes | Chalpi Grande–Papallacta, on the Amazon side of the divide | About 500,000 people |
| Quiport (Mariscal Sucre airport) | The Paluguillo plant, Papallacta system | 5.4 million passengers (2023). Paid FONAG $42,000 under a 2023 agreement |
| Cervecería Nacional (AB InBev) | Basin water, about 2.5 liters per liter of beer (2022) | FONAG constituent since 2003. $6,000 a year as contracted; current amount not found |
| Tesalia CBC | San Pedro and Guayllabamba basin water | FONAG constituent since 2007. $7,000 a year as contracted; current amount not found |
| EEQ hydro plants (Pasochoa, Guangopolo, Cumbayá, Nayón) | Regulated river flow in the Guayllabamba basin | FONAG constituent since 2001. $45,000 a year as contracted |
Read down the middle column and the same two names keep coming back: Papallacta and the Guayllabamba basin. That repetition is the point.
the ratepayer: on the map twice
If you pay an EPMAPS bill, you are on this map twice. You drink the páramo, and you help pay for it. Part of every Quito water bill has gone to FONAG since 2000. Quito invented the modern city water fund. Post 5 covers what that money buys and where it stops.
Where you live decides which sponge fills your glass. The north and east draw mostly on Papallacta. The centre, the south, and Los Chillos draw on Pita–Puengasí, a river-fed system with no reservoir, which rationed water for up to 12 hours at a time in the 2024 drought. The far south drinks La Mica, from Antisana. The northwest drinks from the slopes of Pichincha and Atacazo.
The four systems are not interconnected. When one fails, the others keep running, so a break stays local. The same fact means the neighborhood on the broken pipe has no backup.
the south: one conduit, six parishes, one maternity ward
Guamaní, La Ecuatoriana, Chillogallo, Quitumbe, La Argelia, and Turubamba all drink from La Mica, a reservoir under Antisana filled by páramo and glacier melt. That is about 400,000 people on a single conduit. In July 2025 a landslide on that conduit showed what "single" means. Post 4 tells that story.
What belongs on this map is who went first when water had to move by truck: hospitals. The Hospital Gineco-Obstétrico Nueva Aurora needs 130,000 liters a day to keep delivering babies. A maternity ward depends on a páramo it will never see.
the east: an airport, a bear corridor, half a million neighbors
Mariscal Sucre airport moved 5.4 million passengers in 2023, and its water comes from the Paluguillo plant on the Papallacta system. Paluguillo sits in Ponce-Paluguillo, which in 2018 became Ecuador's first Área de Protección Hídrica. It is a corridor between Antisana and Cayambe-Coca. Camera traps on FONAG land there have recorded 16 Andean bears. The ground around the plant that treats the airport's water is also a bear route between two national parks.
Quiport has already acted on that, paying FONAG $42,000 under a 2023 agreement to protect the corridor. It is the only recent, dated commercial payment toward a Quito source that we could find.
Down the same line, about 500,000 people in Calderón, Tumbaco, Pifo, Tababela, and nearby parishes drink from Chalpi Grande–Papallacta. That water is captured on the Amazon side of the continental divide, in Napo province, and piped over the ridge. The Chalpi hydro plant (7.66 MW) on the same system supplies power to the Metro de Quito. If you ride the Metro, you are on this map too.
the valley: two bottlers and a hydro chain
Cervecería Nacional, which runs a brewery in Quito, reported using about 2.5 liters of water for every liter of beer in 2022. Tesalia CBC bottles water and drinks from the San Pedro and Guayllabamba basin. For a bottler, the basin's water is the product.
Cervecería Nacional has been a FONAG constituent since 2003 and Tesalia since 2007, at $6,000 and $7,000 a year as originally contracted. We could not find current figures. The relationship is real and older than most corporate water pledges. The dollar figures on record are from the original contracts; we could not find current ones.
Empresa Eléctrica Quito runs hydro plants at Pasochoa, Guangopolo, Cumbayá, and Nayón, which depend on steady river flow in the basin. EEQ has been a FONAG constituent since 2001, at $45,000 a year as contracted. It is public, like EPMAPS.
Exposure is a fact. Paying more is a choice.
neighbors, not dependents
Two groups are not on the table, on purpose.
The Kichwa Comuna Oyacachi was recognized in 2001 as owner of about 62,000 hectares inside Cayambe-Coca, including páramos that feed the Salve Faccha reservoir on the Papallacta system. EPMAPS signed an agreement with Oyacachi that year and pays the comuna annually under terms that run to 2049. That is the city paying its upstream neighbor for water that starts on the neighbor's land. It is Oyacachi's table. Anything that touches that páramo goes through it, never around it.
The Pueblo Kitu Kara has dozens of comunas across Quito, Rumiñahui, and Mejía. Counts range from 67 to about 90, depending on who is counting and how. Their ties to this water are older than any utility.
If anything, Quito depends on them: their land and their consent. Nothing in this series asks anything of either. Any conversation happens by invitation.
both ways, or half a map
Quito drinks two kinds of páramo. One is the sponge above town: Antisana, the Pita headwaters under Cotopaxi and Sincholagua, and Pichincha–Atacazo. The other is borrowed. Papallacta and Chalpi sit on the Amazon side of the divide, outside the DMQ, in another province. The Papallacta system served about 45% of residents by Primicias' 2025 count, or 50% by Expreso's. Quito is itself a dependent, relying on Napo, a province it does not govern and sharing Oyacachi-side water with farmers who irrigate through the Cangahua system.
The map also runs downhill. Quito treated 3.42% of its wastewater in 2023, and the rest goes into the Machángara and the city's other rivers, then on to the Guayllabamba. In 2024 a Quito court recognized the Machángara's rights, and the Municipality appealed. The river and the people along it depend on what the city sends back.
The people already working both ends are the heroes. FONAG employs more than two dozen guardapáramos, park rangers for the páramo hired from neighboring communities. EPMAPS owns the reservoirs and the conduits. The Nature Conservancy co-founded FONAG in 2000. Nobody here starts from zero.
how to find your place on the map
- Find your pipe. North or east of the city, or near the airport: Papallacta. Centre, south, or Los Chillos: Pita–Puengasí. The far south: La Mica. The northwest: Pichincha and Atacazo.
- Find the sponge behind it. Antisana's grass and glacier for La Mica. Papallacta and Chalpi, and Oyacachi's land, for the north and east. The Pita headwaters under Cotopaxi for the centre, the south, and Los Chillos. The slopes above the city for the northwest.
- Find the people already on it. FONAG and its guardapáramos, and EPMAPS. They are the door.
- Take one step that fits who you are.
- Ratepayer: there is nothing to buy. Your bill already funds FONAG. Meet the sponge in a páramo is not water, then ask EPMAPS or FONAG what source work covers your system.
- Company on the map: FONAG already runs a water-footprint ally channel, and Quiport used it. If you want to add to that on the specific corridor or catchment you draw from, tell us which one.
- Utility or lender behind a pipe: see how utilities fund the source they draw from.
That is the care-is-specific move applied to one capital city. "Protect Quito" gets a nod. "The grass above La Mica that the maternity ward in Nueva Aurora runs on" names something a person can fund.
Here is how our part fits. In ensurance, an agent is an onchain account that holds and routes funding for a named place, people, or purpose. The live door for Quito's páramo is northern-andean-paramo.ecoregion, the agent for the wider páramo ecoregion. There is no Quito certificate. A Quito-specific instrument is an idea, not a product, and our volumes are small. Any money we routed would go into FONAG's existing work, not beside it.
frequently asked questions
who drinks quito water?
About 2.7 million people in the Distrito Metropolitano de Quito (2,679,722 in the INEC 2022 census; INEC projected 2,838,174 for 2024). They drink from four supply systems that are not interconnected: Papallacta, Pita–Puengasí, La Mica–Quito Sur, and the western conduits. EPMAPS says 85% of the water starts in páramo; FONAG says about 90%.
who depends on quito's páramo?
Ratepayers, the roughly 400,000 people of six south parishes on La Mica, about 500,000 people in Calderón, Tumbaco, Pifo, and Tababela, Quiport's airport, Cervecería Nacional, Tesalia CBC, EEQ's hydro plants, and hospitals such as Nueva Aurora. Comuna Oyacachi and the Kitu Kara comunas are sovereign neighbors, not dependents.
is quito water only for the city?
No. Part of it is imported from the Amazon side of the Andes, from Papallacta and Chalpi in Napo province. Oyacachi-side water is shared with Cangahua irrigators. EPMAPS pays Comuna Oyacachi under a 2001–2049 agreement. Downstream, the Machángara and Guayllabamba carry what Quito sends back.
next steps
- Run a utility, or finance one? See how utilities fund the source they draw from →
- Want to see what's live for this páramo? Start at the northern andean páramo agent →
- On this map and want to fund your source? Tell us which one →
- Want to meet the sponge itself? A páramo is not water →